How to Make the Most Out of Holiday Marketing

There’s no doubt about Christmas being a special time of the year.

It’s the time of holiday celebration, happiness and family moments. We spend fortunes on gifts, bake ginger cookies, return home listening to “Driving Home for Christmas” on the radio and so on so forth.

Who’s dying to watch Home Alone yet again?

For some of us, however, it’s an interesting time also from a slightly different point of view.

Christmas is a peak season in sales.

It’s a shopping frenzy. Consumers spend fortunes on gifts, food, Christmas decorations and God knows what else that’s why sales during Christmas shopping season increase dramatically.

That’s a brilliant opportunity for marketers to make some ginger cookies of ginger!

Let’s have a look at the US where the holiday shopping season starts already in October.

The chart shows that November is the most shoppable month and that’s due to three things: Thanksgiving, Black Friday, Cyber Monday and Christmas.

An Opportunity Not to Be Missed

Bear in mind that the number of people buying online is growing. You, as a business, need to keep up. Here’s proof.

The table below presents the increasing number of sales during Black Friday and Thanksgiving holidays:

IBM breaks it down for you:

• Consumers Cash in on Black Friday Deals: The average order value for the mobile and desktop shopper combined for Black Friday was $127.84, down slightly from 2014 at $129.37.
• Consumers Balance Mobile and Desktop Shopping: Consumers continued to shop via their mobile devices—mobile traffic exceeded desktop, accounting for 57.2 percent of all online traffic, an increase of 15.2 percent over 2014. Mobile sales were also strong, with 36.2 percent of all online sales coming from mobile devices, an increase of nearly 30 percent over last year.
• Tablets Outspend Desktops: For the first time, tablets’ average order value of $136.42 exceeded that of desktops, which ended the day at $134.06. Smartphone shoppers spent $121.06 per order, an increase of 4.3 percent over 2014.
• Smartphones Shoppers Dominate: Smartphones remained the Black Friday shopper’s device of choice. Smartphones accounted for 44.7 percent of all online traffic, 3 1⁄2 times that of tablets at 12.5 percent. Smartphones surpassed tablets in sales, driving 20.6 percent of online sales (up nearly 75 percent over 2014) versus tablets at 15.5 percent.

Here are more numbers showing the general increase in mobile sales between November and December over the period of 5 years.

Holiday Math (is beautiful)

According to Group 8A digital agency, during Christmas shopping season, we witness a relatively huge increase in our marketing statistics:

+50% in ad impressions

+100% in CTR

+150% to traffic

+30% to AOV

+60% to conversion

Looks sweet, right? Online sales are booming during a holiday period and if your company is present online, you should take the advantage of this time.

The Web is Yours

With the development of social media, the Internet has become a place where people not only engage in social networking, but also do shopping, ask for recommendations, review products and interact with brands.

This is particularly visible during holiday periods, such as Christmas. Have a look at a screenshot from Brand24 which presents the volume of buzz about Christmas gifts related conversations.

Since October, people have mentioned Christmas gifts over 900 000 times online.

They’re looking for gift inspirations, like Pam:

@kiepersoltexas Looking for a lovely wine for a Christmas gift. Any recommendations? I'm in Tyler so can drive out to see y'all. ?

— Pamela Version 2.021 ??? (@Timpanist) December 3, 2016

…or GlitterFartTarts:

Companies present their special Christmas deals:

https://www.instagram.com/p/BOAueFTgEQX/

And other consumers recommend some gifts:

https://www.instagram.com/p/BOAsCNGgXPC/

You can track these conversations and leverage this online buzz in numerous ways.

Social Selling

With a social listening tool, such as Brand24, you can track all online conversations related to your business, industry or the product you offer. It gives you the opportunity to spot people directly interested in your services.

People already need your product but they don’t know you exist. Social listening works in real time so that you can engage ASAP.

Hey guys, I'm looking for a smartphone around 250$, that'd be a cool Christmas gift for my mom, any ideas? @UnboxTherapy @tldtoday thx ??

— Captain Odious (@CaptainOdious) December 24, 2015

This one just begs for a reply from a smartphone producer or a local dealer!

Brand Monitoring

Consumers use social media not only to express their disappointments or pain points but also to share their satisfaction and happiness when it comes to brands and products.

https://www.instagram.com/p/BOAynLVgP1D/

By tracking related conversations, you can get the idea of how your brand and product are perceived online. Your customers can be a great source of feedback, insights and improvement suggestions.

Campaign Monitoring

If you launched a special Christmas offer, a dedicated hashtag or a marketing campaign, you can easily monitor how it’s doing online.

Brand24 also comes in handy as an analytical tool that easily measures the results of your actions. Some of the metrics include social media reach, sentiment analysis, the number of interaction and more.

Customer Service

As sales during Christmas shopping season are peaking, it’s good to be prepared for an increased number of customer inquiries. In other words, your customer support team can have hands full of work.

Naturally, during Christmas holiday your Customer Support Team is… on holiday. Therefore, there’s no one to provide help to your customers. Even though your team won’t assist your customers in real time, it can have an easy access to all inquiries in your Brand24 dashboard once they’re back to work.

Competition Monitoring

It’s always good to know what’s your competition up to during such an important time of the year. Brands get really creative and you should keep track of it.

You can monitor their brand, product, marketing campaigns, hashtags, see how they perform, draw conclusions and adjust your strategy.

Conclusion

A holiday period such as Christmas in connection with social listening presents you with unique opportunities. You can not only increase your profits but also leverage other aspects of your online presence, such as brand reputation, social media analysis and customer service.

See how it works exactly and sign up for a trial. It’s completely free.